‘Big Hero 6’ Fends Off Dimwits: Saturday Box Office

Update, Sunday, 1:15 AM: Big Hero 6was bench pressing and drinking Red Bull yesterday as the kid toon surged 105% in its second Saturday over its second Friday with $16.5M, kicking Universal’s Dumb and Dumber Two To into second for a day’s haul of $14.39M. While industry weekend estimates as of tonight see DDT taking the 3-day with $36.5M vs. BH6‘s $35M, the buzz is that the latter could continue to tap matinee rocket fuel and fool the idiot comedy into second place. DDT‘s B- Cinemascore didn’t totally trip up its Saturday, as it held its Friday figure with a slight uptick of 1.7% – but it didn’t help it either.

Interstellarisn’t experiencing any technical malfunctions. Audiences said, “All right, all right,” shelled out close to $13M in extra cash yesterday, which was a 53% uptick over the sci-fi pic’s second Friday. By Sunday, its global gross will be somewhere north of $235M.

Still, the fact that the film’s stateside gross is running an estimated 20% behind Gravity‘s dometic cume through its second weekend, isn’t attributed to their difference in running time (Interstellar is 169 minutes and Gravity‘s is 91 minutes). Just because a film is long, doesn’t mean it just craps out at the box office, read the 162-minute Avatar ($760.5M) and this summer’s 165-minute Transformers: Age of Extinction ($245.4M).

Nor does it mean that it gets shortchanged on showtimes: Interstellar boasts 16 showtimes on Sunday at the Hollywood Arclight over DDT‘s eight, while at Manhattan’s AMC Empire on 42nd Street, Interstellar is being shown 25 times on Sunday in various formats.

Gravity worked eloquently on two levels for both smarty-pants crowds and Neanderthals craving a hot woman, flipping through space. Interstellar isloaded down with a chunk of scientific thought, and if you didn’t brush up on your Theory of Relativity before heading into the multiplex, well, you could be at a loss. And that’s mostly likely why the film earned a B+ Cinemascore and what’s slowing down some crowds: Once they get past the jaw-dropping action, they’re confused on a certain level. Still, it’s a fun ride and will likely relish the trickle-down bucks from Hunger Games 3.1 throughout the Turkey Day holiday stretch.

Not all the data flowed in for the frosh arthouse pics, but Roadside Attractions The Homesmanis looking to lasso $42K for the weekend off four locales for a per hub average of $10,500. Open Road’s Rosewaterraked in $422K on Friday off 371 and should gross $1.1M for the weekend. Sony Pictures Classics Foxcatchertrapped $76K on Friday, $112K estimated on Saturday and could generate an estimated opening weekend in the $250K range from New York and Los Angeles sites.

Below is the top five on Saturday with updated industry Friday and weekend figures. Scott Bowles will weigh in on Sunday AM with the 3-day estimates:

Previous, Saturday 1:15AM: It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Dumb and Dumber To was going to rally Friday with an estimated $13.9 million. However, industry bean counters think that the Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels gross-out comedy is going to need some extra deodorant, as it’s going to sweat to keep No. 1.

Disney’s Big Hero 6 is looking to blast off at Saturday and Sunday matinees, and gain distance on DDT. It’s a little too early to tell if BH6 is actually going to push Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels off their bicycles, but we’ll have a better idea on Sunday AM. The Disney animated toon is expected to speed past $100M at the domestic B.O, becoming the 85th title in Disney’s studio history to do so. Though Interstellar outpegged BH6 tonight, $8.475M to $8.2M, the latter is looking at an estimated three-day of $33.65M, down 40% in its second frame. As long as no dummies are tracking wild DDT projections, the comedy is looking at a 3-day gross in the range of $35.6M, still besting early industry projections of $30-32M.

Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan’s three-hour sci-fi epic Interstellar from Paramount/WBis orbiting to land in third with an estimated $28.1M for FSS, down 41% from its first weekend frame. While it will clear $100 million some time next week, by Sunday it looks to be pacing an estimated 11% behind last year’s astronaut thriller Gravity. Both Interstellar and Big Hero 6 posted second Fridays that were essentially half from a week ago, respectively declining 50% and 48%.

DDT was speeding away like a puppy van in its matinees, fueling some Friday projections upward to $16M, but come evening, the laughs were wearing off. Critics loathed the sequel to the 20 year-old gross-out film with 27% Rotten Tomatoes score, but the film was never looking to draw in the tweed jacket demo. The upset here is that the Cinemascore for DDT is B-, which is as bad as a stick in the eye for the Farrelly Brothers sequel. Heading into the Thanksgiving bloodbath, word of mouth is crucial for DDT if Universal intends to grab those young adults shut out of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part I screenings. The first Dumb & Dumber held at No. 1 for four weeks throughout the 1994 Christmas season, unopposed by any behemoth titles — it was three years before a holiday blockbuster like Titanic would crash into multiplexes.

Relativity’s African American demo pop star film Beyond the Lights bowed to $2.3M tonight on 1,789 screens, looking toward a weekend take of $6.6M. Despite the single digit gross, both auds and critics adore the film with an A Cinemascore and an 84% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film stars up-and-coming actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the lead superstar Noni. Earlier this year, Mbatha-Raw turned heads as British 18th century slave Dido Elizabeth Belle in Fox Searchlight’s Belle and many are struck by the range the actress shows between the two films.

Meanwhile, Fox Searchlight’s Birdman is looking to fly in and land in 10th this weekend thanks to its expansion from 460 to 857 theaters. The platform will hardly scratch its beak as its looking to post a 3-day a feather shy of last weekend’s $2.3M.

NOTEWORTHY: Open Road bowed Jon Stewart’s directorial debut, Rosewater, which follows Iranian-Canadian BBC journalist Maziar Bahari’s imprisonment after being accused of spying during the lead-up to the 2009 presidential election in Iran. Industry figures have Rosewater flowing with $475K on Friday night leading up to an estimated weekend take of $1.33M from 371 runs. On Thursday night, Fathom Events and Open Road hosted a special screening of Rosewater in over 300 theaters, followed by a telecasted Q&A with Stewart and Bahari, hosted by Stephen Colbert. It was an illuminating Q&A with Stewart mentioning that when Bahari was released, the Iranian government threatened to kill him, should he ever divulge his story to the world. “Maziar started writing the f**king story immediately when he got on the plane,” exclaimed Stewart. The screening at the AMC Century City in L.A. overflowed into a second theater with exiting crowds experiencing a half hour traffic jam in the garage. Critics are dashing themselves with Rosewater at 74% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score.

Finally, Sony Pictures Classics’ haunting drama Foxcatchersaw the light of day in New York and Los Angeles after rolling off last autumn’s mat. It’s eyeing a $76K estimated Friday from six hubs and a three-day weekend that’s around $253K. Film follows dynasty eccentric John du Pont who cryptically trains wrestling duo the Schultz brothers for another go at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. Bennett Miller took best director at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and Steve Carell is winning critical praise for pulling a spooky 180 from his bread-and-butter comedy fare, topped off with a prosthetic nose that could whack Nicole Kidman’s schnoz from The Hours off in a nose fight. Critics are giving Foxcatcher a big bear hug with 84% fresh on the Tomatometer. 60 Minutes spotlighted Carell’s performance last Sunday, heading to the actor’s Massachusetts’ homestead.

Roadside Attractions distribution of Saban’s The Homesman, the Tommy Lee Jones oater produced by Europa Corp. registered below the top 20 in industry estimates Friday night.